If you want to see 400 different kinds of iris, you must motor to the Napa Country Iris Garden. A 45-minute trip through beautiful country. Go down to Pope Valley/ turn south and go about seven miles to Lower Chiles Valley Road on the left. You will dead-end at Route 128. Turn East and go to Moskowite Corner. Turn north just this side of the restaurant and go a couple of miles to the Garden.

The garden will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday only through Sunday May 1. Hours are 10am to 5pm. Admission is free. More info at: http://www.napairis.com

A must go-to.

Angwin's homegrown real estate booms and busts

In the United States, real estate sales go through cycles, climbing to exotic heights, then dropping like a rock. Up here on Howell Mountain we share that experience.

We had a boom period in Angwin which reached a peak one year of 49 sales. And that was not just an aberration. Sales stayed in the 40's for the six years 1985 to 1990.

Our history over the past 27 years shows four cycles, the last of which seems to have materialized just a few months ago. last year.

Number One: Sales started descending from a high of 49 in 1988 and fell steadily to 15 in 1993. A dramatic bust from a dramatic boom.

Number Two: Sales started recovering from 21 sales in 1994 to a peak of 36 in 1999. Then collapsed to 16 in 2002. A short but complete cycle.

Number Three: The next boom began with a recovery that led to a heady peak of 36 in 2004, followed by another good year of 32 in 2005. Then came the bust. Sales dropped to 20 in 2006, and introduced a recession that lasted for seven long years. Sales bottomed out at 11. It happened everywhere in the U. S.

Number Four: The three years - 2012, 2013 and 2914 - saw us clawing our way upward with 28 sales in 2012, 35 in 2013, and 39 in 2014. A very healthy recovery from a long period of very few sales. But, then, what do you know! . .. a drop to 20 sales in 2015. End of another boom?

Property Values/St. Helena vs. Angwin

St. Helena values have historically run higher than Angwin, only eight miles away.

2015 Sales

Under $500,000
$500,000 to $600,000
$600,000 to $700,000
$700,000 to $800,000
$800,000 to $900,000
$900,000 to $1 million

Subtotal

$1 million to $2 million
$2 million to $3 million
$3 millino to $4 million
$4 million to $5 million
$5 million to $6 million
$6 million to $7 million
$7 million to $8 million
$8 million to $9 million

Subtotal

$10,950,000
$13,000,000
$58,800,000

Subtotal

St. Helena150 Sales

11
9
19
10
16
___
65
(43%)

50
10
8
7
4
2
1 1
83
(56%)

1
1 1
3
(0.2%)

Angwin20 Sales

6
6

4

2
18
(90%)

1

1

___
2
(10%)

___
0

2016 is unpredictable

Nationwide, statistics indicate that the U. S. economy is improving gradually on a wide front. The public confidence level is rising. Middle class families are buying new cars, and new car sales usually precede property sales. Last year, car sales topped 17.4 million, a kind of record. The value of the dollar is up. Mortgage rates are still low. U.S. home prices had jumped nearly 6% last year. San Francisco saw a 20% leap, highest in the nation.

The downside is equally puzzling. Investors in stocks are seeing tremendous volatility in the market, with the Dow Jones Index soaring to 18,000. A historic high. But wallowing in the 16,000's a few months later. No explanation, or rather a lot of laughable explanations. Something that happened in Turkey, something in Finland.

The long-range outlook for the U. S. is not encouraging for other, more plausible reasons. Millions of American families have dropped into the poverty level. Couples which enjoyed two full-time paychecks are down to two part-time paychecks. Or one. The top 1% are getting more of the money than the bottom 60%.

How will these trends affect Angwin real estate sales? That's a guessing game.